Given the low proficiency levels required to pass the university exit requirement in most cases, this situation may lead to noticeable increases in overall English proficiency, but such a process would happen over the long term.
These speakers have relatively low proficiency levels, namely, A1, A2, and B1 of the Common European Framework (CEF), because it is for these levels that ASR-based CALL applications appear to be most needed.
However, to address policy-relevant gender gaps (such as the issue of the overrepresentation of boys in the lowest proficiency levels in reading or the underrepresentation of girls in math and science in higher education), we need to pursue Hill et al.'s (2008) work, providing empirical benchmarks at different proficiency levels on representative samples.
In fact, according to the National Adult Literacy Survey, 23percentt of the 191 million adults in America perform at the lowest reading proficiency level.
In the TREE study the percentage of students who have not completed an upper secondary program is much higher among low-achievers (proficiency level I or below; between 19 and 37%) than among those who scored in the middle or higher ranges (proficiency levels II to V; between 4 and 10%).
Culligan and Gorsuch (1999) reported the result of the test (k = 150) when given to 487 Japanese university students and only 66 SLEP® test items (44 %) were discriminating high and low test-takers' proficiency levels.
Results indicate that the size of differences between males and females in learning achievement varies according to the proficiency level, i.e. between low and high achievers.
Ethnicity acts through characteristics that are often linked to ethnic minority status, such as a low proficiency in the majority language, a lower educational level and religious and cultural practices that differ from the majority population.
Almost a quarter demonstrated very low proficiency in science, and 28% scored below the minimum level in math.
For readers with low proficiency, all predictors explained 20.29% of the school-level variance and 8.32% of the total variance in the dependent variable.
